Can this jealousy-ridden relationship work?

Dear Netdoctor, I have been with my current partner for nearly 10 years. It has been a normal relationship with its problems. About three years ag...

05/01/2008

Question

I have been with my current man for 10 years. About three years ago we split up for about six months because my partner was becoming increasingly jealous and possessive and I could not take it any longer.

I felt that I did not love him any more and that he was only making me angrier and resentful with his implications and insinuations of my non-existent flirting and affairs.

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In the time that my partner was away from our home he had several sexual relationships which didn’t bother me as we were no longer together and when we saw each other he would tell me about them.

Then one day I saw him out with his newest of girlfriends and he was holding her hand and from somewhere deep inside I felt like I had been shot!

When was the last time he had held my hand like that and looked at me like that? Why hadn’t he behaved like that with me?

But it suddenly dawned on me that I really did love him still and as he wanted to get back together anyway that is what happened.

It was not all plain sailing though for the first 12 months, He was very cold towards me one minute and loving the next.

It got to the stage that I even suggested that we split again, not because I didn’t love him but because our relationship was not improving and or progressing for the better.

Then I found out that he had had a one-night stand.

Since he has admitted to sleeping with this woman, he is all over me and says that it proved to him how much he did love me and want to be with me.

He is behaving how I have always wanted him to behave but I can’t enjoy it because I am now so very distrustful and jealous (something that I have never been with him till now).

What do I do? How do I go about changing my attitude? His has changed, because he went to a counsellor about his jealousy and now he’s gone from one extreme to another.

He doesn’t care if I flirt, what clothes I wear or even if I kiss someone else – as long has he knows about it.

I have gone the other way, I get sulky if he flirts and moan if he’s late.

Help, because I know he loves me and that I love him but I also know what can happen if I don’t sort this out.

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Answer

David writes:

Reluctantly, I must say that what you describe does not fill me with tremendous enthusiasm for the future of this relationship.

But perhaps I'm wrong. Lets ask Christine...

Christine adds:

This is all very dramatic, isn't it? Perhaps both of you thrive on a relationship of extreme emotions.

At the beginning of your email you describe the relationship as a normal one with it problems. But it doesn't really sound very normal to me.

When you describe your feeling about seeing your man with the other girl holding his hand I agree that this could be interpreted as love.

But it could also be interpreted as a feeling of jealousy, i.e. I won't let anyone else have him, even though he has put me through hell.

He then got back together with you but acted very coldly towards you for a year. I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound like the actions of a very loving man – or a very nice man, really.

Now he has proved – through some other affair – that he does want to be with you, and for the first time in your history he's behaving in a loving, mature way with you.

But now you feel sulky and rather cold. I'm sorry to say this but it's a bit like a soap opera.

What I can't help wondering is whether there's quite a lot of drinking going on. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but all these great dramatic U-turns sound as if they might be fuelled with booze.

Be that as it may – he appears to be fine with you now, but you can't react in the way you want to with him. He seems to have got his head straight through going to a counsellor.

My best suggestion is that you do the same. A Relate counsellor would help you to discuss all your mixed feelings about this man, and all your past history and help you to sort out your emotions now.

In a strange kind of way I can see that you two love each other. But I do feel that if you are to be together the relationship really needs to settle into something more to do with genuine authentic love and care and companionship.

Can it do that? Or are you too addicted to the ups and downs in it that always seem to have been there? I don't know. But I do think that counselling is the best way to find out.

Finally, I suggest that the two of you read an excellent book called ‘Overcoming Jealousy’. It’s by Professor Windy Dryden and is published by Sheldon Press. This book is readily available from Amazon and the various other internet book stores.

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